Roy Trumbull (who previously recorded a free podcast of my story The Super Man and the Bugout) has just recorded another podcast, this time of my story Craphound, my first-ever professional publication. It’s a nostalgic story about aliens who come to earth for our yardsales and the humans whom they befriend. It’s the third audio adaptation so far, and it sounds great. Roy’s a terrific reader.

Craphound had wicked yard-sale karma, for a rotten, filthy alien bastard. He was
too good at panning out the single grain of gold in a raging river of
uselessness for me not to like him — respect him, anyway. But then he found the
cowboy trunk. It was two months’ rent to me and nothing but some squirrelly
alien kitsch-fetish to Craphound.

So I did the unthinkable. I violated the Code. I got into a bidding war with a
buddy. Never let them tell you that women poison friendships: in my experience,
wounds from women-fights heal quickly; fights over garbage leave nothing behind
but scorched earth.

Craphound spotted the sign — his karma, plus the goggles in his exoskeleton,
gave him the advantage when we were doing 80 kmh on some stretch of back-highway
in cottage country. He was riding shotgun while I drove, and we had the radio on
to the CBC’s summer-Saturday programming: eight weekends with eight hours of old
radio dramas: “The Shadow,” “Quiet Please,” “Tom Mix,” “The Crypt-Keeper” with
Bela Lugosi. It was hour three, and Bogey was phoning in his performance on a
radio adaptation of _The African Queen_. I had the windows of the old truck
rolled down so that I could smoke without fouling Craphound’s breather. My arm
was hanging out the window, the radio was booming, and Craphound said “Turn
around! Turn around, now, Jerry, now, turn around!”